In the Wonderful World of Words - Teaching Vocabulary

1. In the Wonderful
World
of Words
HUPE Annual Conference
Opatija, 25 April, 2014
Sanja Božinović
OŠ Nikole Hribara Velika Gorica
sanja.bozinovic@skole.hr

2. Teaching
vocabulary?
Too many words,
Too little time.
What?
Why?
How?
Where?

3. Problems/Challenges:
 Get students to learn vocabulary beyond memorisation
 Decide which words are important
 Have a number of ideas available to try
 Provide transparent individual self-study acitivities
 Motivate students
 Make learning vocabulary a fun activity

4. Vocabulary cannot be taught.
It can be presented, explained,
Included in all kinds of activities,
And experienced in all manner of associations
But ultimately it is learned by the individual.
Wilga Rivers

5.  age
 language level
 class size
 learning styles
 motivation
How?

6. Students learn new words
 relevant
 familiar topic
 the native language and the second
language
 a number of contacts (6x ?, 7x?, 16x?)

7. ”If you don’t use it, you lose it.”
Anne Hernandez
24/48/7/14

8. 10 Principles for Effective
Vocabulary Instruction

9. Teaching Words in 6 steps
 Teacher explains the word
 Students restate or explain
 Students create a non-linguistic representative
 Students engage in activities to deepen knowledge
(compare, ...)
 Discuss the word
 Periodically play games to review
Robert Marzano
taken from Edutopia, Jan16, 2014

10. Review and practice:
 Setting up a weekly vocabulary competition
 Voting for the most useful words
 Keeping track of word lists

11.  Creating fill-in-the-blank sentences
 Fill-in-the-blank exercises – idea:
http://theotherthingsmatter.wordpress.com/
2014/01/09/dont-know-a-word-get-ridda-it/

12.  KWL modified (Alber,Edutopia, Jan 2014)

13. Technology helps?
image from pbworks.com
Technology is only a tool and it is up to the teacher
to decide when to use it.

14.  Use worksheet templates to create board games,
dominoes, dice, etc
http://mes-english.com/
 quizzes, word games, word puzzles, proverbs, slang
expressions, anagrams ...
http://www.manythings.org/

15. Puzzle Maker
http://www.discoveryeducation.com/free-puzzlemaker/

16. Challenge? -Quizicon
 How many of the 100 most common words in the
English language you can guess in 5 min?
 list compiled using the Oxford English Corpus, used by
the makers of the Oxford English Dictionary, which
contains over 2 billion words of written English
 http://quizicon.com/100-Most-Common-English-Words-
Quiz.html

17. - everywhere
 http://
www.english-attack.com/
Ideas:
 Ask students to prepare for a
lesson with Video Booster or Photo
Vocab
• Use it in the classroom
• Video Booster, Photo Vocab or a
Practice Game for homework
Where

18. English Attack –free version
Video Booster
 Vocab Quickview
1. The video
2. Survival Test
3. Listening Lab
4. Quiz Challenge
5. Vocab Academy
6. Grammar Jungle
 Final Score + Practice
games

19. • Vocabulary sets
• A card =
-pronunciation
-definition
-sample sentence
• Practice games:
-Speed pix
-Word rescue
-Swapmania

20. English Central
http://www.englishcentral.com/
a voice recognition software
students work on their own

21. 1.Watch the video
2.Learn the words
3.Speak the video
4.Quiz vocabulary

22. English Central
type the word to learn it speak and get feedback

23. Quizlet
• Word cards
• Quizzes
• games

24. http://quizlet.com/

25. Vocab Test
http://www.vocabtest.com/vocabulary_word_test.ph
p?tid=202675

26. Free Rice http://freerice.com/#/english-
vocabulary/

27. http://www.vocabulary.com/

28. Online dictionaries
 Cambridge Online: http://dictionary.cambridge.org/
 Merriam-Webster: http://www.learnersdictionary.com/
 Other online dictionaries

29. A.Word.A.Day
http://wordsmith.org/words/today.html
"The most welcomed, most enduring piece of daily mass e-
mail in cyberspace."
The New York Times

30. Word Walls - online
http://padlet.com/wall/kk2tc8bvh6

31. Word Walls in the classroom
 shapes, colours to draw attention
 mind maps, word clouds, ...
 Mrs Dunkerley’s hive: Word Wall Activities
http://www.teachingfirst.net/wordwallact.htm
 Online sticky sharing: http://en.linoit.com/

32. Word lists: Wordle
http://www.wordle.net/

33. http://www.wordle.net/

34. Games to learn about...
(some examples)

35. Animals: http://www.buildyourwildself.com/

36. Ecology:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/education/sy
sm/eco/flash/flash_full.shtml

37. Storytelling and poetry help:
 exaggerated reading
 repetition and memorization
 performance (role-play, staging a play) -fun
 motivation for repeated listening
 incidental vs. intentional learning
 process vs. product learning

38. YL: Storymaker

39. http://learnenglishkids.britishcouncil.org/en/
make-your-own/story-maker

40. Teenagers and older students:
 Six Word Stories
http://www.sixwordstories.net/
-inspired by Ernest Hemingway’s famous challenge.
- stories by notable writers, reader submissions
- cattegories
- create and share (Facebook, Twitter)

41. http://www.pimpampum.net/phrasr/

42. (In)voluntary Free Reading
a reading journal - once a week/month?

43. “A learning strategy of value in one
learning context may prove useless in
another.”
Darius Langhoff; ETP, Issue72, Jan 2011

44. Feel free to use what works
in your teaching situation
and don’t forget to share 
Sharing is caring!

45. sanja.bozinovic@skole.hr
http://sanjasays.blogspot.com/